A taxonomy for Future Internet stakeholders

Stakeholders are entities supervising or making decisions that affect how the Internet ecosystem operates and evolves. A usual phenomenon is that the same entity plays multiple roles, for example ISPs (Internet Service Providers) offer connectivity services but at the same time can provide entertainment content services. In the first SESERV report on the Future Internet economic challenges, an initial taxonomy of Internet stakeholder roles has been formed, by studying a number of research projects and identifying missing roles from previous attempts.

In our interactions with the FISE community and Challenge 1 research projects, we had the opportunity to present this taxonomy, encourage them to identify roles that may have been excluded from their analysis and provide us feedback on the taxonomy itself. This feedback resulted in a revision of the taxonomy, as shown in the next figure. More details can be found in the Final Report on Economic Future Internet Coordination Activities.

Connectivity Providers refer to the entities responsible for the delivery of traffic from its source to the ultimate destination. This traffic may involve Users consuming services in order to meet their business and personal needs or Information Providers that offer service applications to address other, non-networking needs. Both Connectivity and Information providers may depend on Infrastructure Providers for leasing the necessary components (computational, network and storage resources). Content Owners produce content items such as movies. Technology Makers make available Internet protocols, software and hardware that seeds new needs and services. Last but not least, Policy Makers supervise the operation of the Internet and intervene when necessary.